With the development of the communication technology, more and more application programs have been integrated on a terminal, for example, instant messenger (Instant Messenger, IM) application programs, such as MSN, QQ. During operating, corresponding clients of the above IM application programs send heartbeat (Heart Beat, HB) messages to a server periodically, so as to notify the server of the online state of the clients via a network side device. In the prior art, the terminal sends the heartbeat message to the server at set sending time of its own via the network side device, which may affect the processing for normal communication messages of the network side device and may even affect the normal operating of communication services of the terminal.
A radio resource management (Radio Resource Management, RRM) algorithm involves in a time parameter for a state transition of a terminal (Terminal), and the terminal can make the state transition according to the time parameter, for example, an access network device can decide to release the terminal from a connected state to an idle state according to the setting of an inactivity timer (User Inactivity timer). Provided that the inactivity timer set by the access network device is T1, and the access network device starts the timer T1 to start the timing if no data is received from the terminal. If the access network device receives the data from the terminal during operating of the timer T1, the access network device stops the timing; and starts the timer T1 again when the terminal service is completed. If the timer T1 expires, the access network device initiates a context release procedure of the terminal to release the terminal from a connected state to an idle state. After the terminal enters the idle state, if the terminal needs to send a heartbeat message, the terminal needs to enter the connected state firstly, since the heartbeat message is sent periodically, it may cause frequently switching between the connected state and the idle state of the terminal, therefore, the signaling processing burden on the network side device and the power consumption of the terminal is increased, and even the normal operations of the communication service of the terminal are affected.